Date of Award
7-21-2020
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Environmental Sciences, Ph.D.
First Advisor
Virginie Rolland
Committee Members
Than Boves; Thomas Risch; Travis Marsico; Veena Kulkarni; Yeonsang Hwang
Call Number
LD 251 .A566d 2020 H27
Abstract
Despite the scientific consensus that human activities are the primary cause, many people deny the problem of climate change. If mitigation efforts are to be successful, we need to determine young individuals’ attitudes toward and knowledge of climate change. Successful mitigation efforts are important for humans, as well as wildlife and the environment. Wildlife populations are already being affected, with many documented cases of negative impacts. Effects on populations can occur through impacts on demographic parameters, and if parameters are synchronized across species or populations, this could prove disastrous if climate change negatively affects these parameters. Here, I surveyed first-semester college students from 19 universities across the United States to assess their attitudes and knowledge toward climate change, determine what affected these variables, and test for a relationship between attitude and knowledge. I also used nesting and banding data from 4 populations of Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) in contrasting climatic regions to estimate each population’s demographic parameters, determine which global climatic and local weather variable affected these parameters, and project how populations in each region will be impacted under future climate change scenarios. Finally, I used 21 years of nesting data collected by citizen scientists to assess whether the breeding parameters of 4 cavity-nesting songbirds were synchronized. I found that attitude and knowledge were positively associated, and approximately the same combination of personal and environmental factors affected student knowledge and attitude. I also found that across all Eastern Bluebird populations, breeding parameter estimates were relatively high, whereas adult and juvenile survival estimates were low. These parameters were affected by multiple global and local climatic variables throughout the breeding and non-breeding seasons, with the exact variables differing among populations. Western populations mostly benefited under climate change scenarios, but eastern populations showed declines in population growth rates. Finally, I found little evidence of synchrony in breeding parameters, which may have been due to lack of data, and I recommend increasing citizen-science efforts. Overall, my results suggest a more promising future than expected for some species like Eastern Bluebirds, with the next generation of citizens showing increased concern about climate change.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Harrod, Sara Elizabeth, "Climatic variability and climate change: U.S. college freshmen attitudes and spatio-temporal effects on cavity-nesting passerines" (2020). Student Theses and Dissertations. 393.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/393
Included in
Environmental Education Commons, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Ornithology Commons
